


Thought I Lost You

by Will_Write_4_Coffee



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Frank sees someone disappear and freaks out about Karen, PTSD mentions, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), That's it that's the plot, Worry, no major deaths b/c I don't feel like going THAT dark, romantic feelings, spoiler alert: they love each other, there are A Lot of feelings involved, this is during/after the Snap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 07:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18331778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Will_Write_4_Coffee/pseuds/Will_Write_4_Coffee
Summary: The Snap happens and Frank can't find Karen...





	1. Dust

It started with the waitress at the diner pouring his coffee.

One moment she was there, pot in one hand, and then the next…

Glass shattered all over the floor, hot coffee splashing across the dirty tile.

Frank thought he’d had a psychotic break. The bullet hole in his brain finally had turned him crazy. It was the only explanation for what he saw.

People didn’t just crumble into ash like that.

Jumping up from his stool, grasping at air and the last dust motes of the woman he’d been thanking just seconds before, he stared at the space behind the counter she’d occupied.

Then he heard the screaming.

Throughout the small diner, families were fracturing apart. Mothers and fathers disintegrating. Children… God, even the kids.

“What…” he muttered, blinking as if that would rectify the horrible scene before him. “No, no, no…”

Outside cars crashed into light poles and brick buildings. A city bus making a turn flipped on its side. Bags, groceries, strollers… Anything people were holding went scattering into the street.

The screaming intensified.

Turning, Frank staggered, the ground becoming a Tilt-A-Whirl. His stomach rolled, throat burning with the coffee he’d just consumed.

On numb legs, he left the diner, forcing himself to ignore the dust clouds he was stomping through.

He knew three things.

People were dying in mass quantities.

There didn’t seem to be a reason behind who lived and who died.

And he needed to find Karen.

***********

Navigating New York during apocalyptic conditions was harder than he thought. But at least the cell towers still worked.

“Hi, you’ve reached Karen Page. I’m sorry I missed your call, but if you’ll leave a message—”

Frank snarled as he hung up. He’d already left four messages and about a million texts, and if she wasn’t answering…

He shook his head, refusing to let the thought in.

Unlocking his phone again, he found a different number and hit the call button.

“Frank?”

“Micro,” Frank said, crossing the street, dodging the heaps of metal from another traffic accident. “Are you—”

“What the fuck is happening, Frank?” Micro nearly yelled. “Sarah and I were at a parent teacher conference and then—”

“Did Sarah—”

“No, the teacher did!” He could hear him pacing. “One second she was talking about Leo’s grades, the next she was crumbling into nothing! What the fuck, Frank?”

Frank’s chest hurt worse than if a bullet tore through him. “Leo and Zach, are they okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re fine, they’re here.”

“David, I…” Frank swallowed. “I need your help.”

“Wha-what do you mean?”

“I need you to find someone like you found me. All those security cameras, facial recognition, all that shit. You got it?”

“Frank, you think that shit’s still running after—”

“It better fucking be, and you’re gonna fucking do it, you understand?”

There was a beat of silence.

“It’s Karen, right?”

Frank stopped at the corner, staring up at the buildings around him. “I’ve called and called, but…” He couldn’t finish. Thankfully he didn’t need to.

“I’m on it, Frank.”

“Thank you, David.”

He hung up before his voice cracked.

Inhaling raggedly, Frank glanced around, spotting a taxi still running and no one inside.

He didn’t let himself think about the person who’d been in the driver’s seat, as he got in and hit the gas.


	2. Air

He made it halfway across the Williamsburg Bridge before the wrecks and traffic jams forced everything to a complete halt.

Slamming his palm on the steering wheel, he growled as he threw open the door and climbed out.

He used to run fifteen, twenty miles a day in the Marines. The couple miles to Karen’s building was nothing.

Physically, anyway. But the whole time he thought he was having a heart attack. Chest constricted, pain lancing up his sides and arms, sweating through his teeshirt.

He couldn’t stop from imagining it… Karen, alone and afraid, body fading into dust right before her eyes.

Not just dying… Ceasing to exist.

Whatever was happening, it was a cruel trick. Death was one thing, but this…

Her face was all he could see as he ran, terror in her blue eyes.

His phone rang just as he crossed the bridge.

“David?”

“I found her,” David said.

“Where?”

“Well, I found her and then I lost her.”

Frank nearly broke his phone in his hand. “DAVID.”

“The last place I saw her was leaving a drug store a block from her apartment. After that—”

“Which drug store?”

After David gave him the store name and address, Frank double timed his running speed.

Finding the drug store wasn’t hard—it was a chain with a neon sign—but getting to the front was nearly impossible. People had already started looting, hauling out things like diapers, toilet paper, boxes of protein bars and Cup-A-Noodles. People were acting like it was the end days, and if he was honest, he couldn’t say he blamed them.

“Karen?” He shouted, looking around. He didn’t see her inside, or down any of the nearby alleys. “Karen!”

A brunette across the street perked up but when they both didn’t recognize each other, they turned away from one another.

Cursing under his breath, Frank scrubbed his hands over his close cropped hair.

“Okay Frank, okay…” He whispered, trying to drown out the sounds of people weeping for their lost. “Okay, what are you gonna do? Huh? Whaddya do?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he heard the ghosts of his past.

_“C’mon Frankie boy, you know what to do.”_

_“Are you a Marine or some pansy-ass chump?”_

_“Remember that time in Kabul?”_

_“Boy, this is what you’ve been trained for, now are you gonna fall apart or are you gonna do what needs to be done?”_

_“C’mon Frankie.”_

_“C’mon Frank.”_

“Okay, Frank.” He turned, scanning the street at each direction.

He didn’t recognize any of the belongings strewn along the sidewalks. That was as close to a good sign as he figured he’d get.

Deciding to sweep the block, he checked every inch. Every alley. Every store. Every hiding spot.

When he could be certain Karen wasn’t outside of her building, he moved inside, running to her apartment.

“Karen?” He called, banging his fist door. “Karen, it’s me! Karen!”

No answer.

“No, no, no, c’mon.” He knocked again and again. “Karen!”

He didn’t hear any movement inside.

Jogging down the hall, he knocked on Mrs. Ruiz’s door, hoping Karen’s favorite neighbor had seen her.

When the elderly woman answered, her eyes were wide and bloodshot from crying.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to… Have you seen Miss Page?”

She shook her head, dazed. “No… I…” Her voice faltered. “My husband…”

Frank’s ribs crushed against his lungs, pushing all the air from his body.

He couldn’t grieve for Mrs. Ruiz just yet. He had to keep his head on straight.

“Thank you,” he muttered, striding away from her door.

Frank made a short list in his mind of where Karen would possibly go in a crisis.

Nelson and Murdock worked out of butcher shop now, but that was all the way back in Hell’s Kitchen.

The Bulletin was a possibility, but again, it was all the way across the bridge.

Panic made his vision tunnel. He could spend days searching for her. God only knew if she was in one of the buses or cabs that wrecked when their drivers evaporated. Or stuck in the subway. Or—

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned, knees giving out.

Catching himself, he pressed his back to the wall, and slid down into a low crouch. Head hanging between shaky knees, he stared at the ugly patterned carpet, and tried to breathe, tried to think.

Millions of people, just gone. No body to bury. No closure. No way to grieve. No way to even know for certain who lived and who…

“I can’t do this again,” he whispered, running his hands over his face. “I can’t… I…”

Footsteps—running—up the stairs, rounding the corner, and then stopping.

“Frank?”

He thought he was hallucinating.

“Oh God, Frank?”

It didn’t sink in until she was right in front of him, pushing into his space, grabbing him by the arms, the neck, forcing him to look her in the eyes.

Those bright blue eyes, watery with unshed tears.

“Karen?”


	3. Fire

He didn’t have much time to react before she was hauling him into a hug so fierce he thought he felt a few vertebrae snap.

“Jesus, Karen,” he grunted, wrapping his arms around her delicate waist.

“You’re here, you’re okay,” she said into the side of his head. “I thought…”

“Where the hell were you?” He asked, pulling back to cup one broad hand at her jaw.

“I was leaving the pharmacy when I saw… These people in front of me, they just…” She shook her head. “They faded into dust, Frank. In just a moment they were gone, and I…” Her voice cracked. “I was so scared.”

Shaking fingers tangled in her hair, sending sensory evidence to his grey matter that she was there. She was alive.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” he said. “It kept going to voice mail, and I… I even called Micro to look for you.”

“You what?”

He scowled. “What else was I supposed to do? You weren’t picking up, Kare—”

Pale hands clutched the front of his shirt, nails dragging against a patch of skin at his neck. More evidence he wasn’t dreaming.

“My phone got knocked out of my hand,” she told him. “It felt down a storm drain. I thought about trying to get it but I—”

“But what?”

“I had to find you.”

Everything stilled around them as realization hit.

“You…” He swallowed. “You went to look for me?”

Blonde hair fell across her forehead as she nodded. “Of course I did, Frank.”

A broken, roughly hewn laugh tore from his throat. “You went lookin’ for me, and I hauled ass to come find you.”

Her smile was a little shaky, but still just as bright as ever.

“We’re quite a pair, huh?”

“I’ll say.”

Ducking her head, she stared down at where their hands had found each other, fingers wrapped tightly together.

“Frank…”

Bolting forward, he tilted her chin up just in time to press his lips to hers.

It was bruising, crushing, desperate at first, but then the edge softened, sending warmth into his belly like good whiskey.

“Scared the shit outta me, you know that?” He murmured against her cheek as she kissed his temple, his jaw. “Thought I’d lost you.”

Karen kissed him again, biting gently at his bottom lip. “How do you think I felt when I got to your favorite diner and saw your coat and hat still there?”

Damn. He hadn’t even realized he’d left them.

“Karen, I—”

“C’mon,” she said, pushing to her feet and dragging him with her. “Can’t stay in the hallway all night.”

He let her pull him along with her, barely keeping an inch between them as she unlocked her apartment.

“Do you… I mean, should you check on your friends?” He said, lips brushing the hair at the crown of her head.

“I ran by Foggy’s before coming home,” she said, flicking on a light. “He and Matt are fine. Marci too.”

Some of the heat faded between them as they both remembered the horrors of the day.

“I… Can you wait with me while I check on the others? Ellison, my…” She faltered. “Everyone.”

Frank nodded, following her into the living room.

Grabbing her laptop, Karen sat on the edge of her sofa, balancing it on her knees as she emailed and Skyped and checked every social media platform she was a part of.

Frank never left her side. Even let their thighs slowly press together, like a seam being ironed straight. He couldn’t bring himself to try to force distance now when barely thirty minutes ago he’d been toeing the line of a break down over losing her.

Afternoon turned to dusk, and finally Karen set her computer on the coffee table.

“Ellison’s okay,” she murmured. “But I don’t know about some of the people at the paper… And I haven’t heard from a lot of my family…”

Frank took her hand in his, staring at her profile. “I’m sorry, Karen.”

She nodded once, gripping his fingers. “I, uh…” She blinked, turning to look at him. “I’m so fucking tired,” she said, coughing out a laugh.

He could see it too. Dark crescents forming under her eyes, the color fading from her cheeks, shoulders slumping.

“C’mon,” Frank urged, standing.

Tugging her to her feet, he walked her to her bedroom. He liked how different it was from the rest of her apartment. A little messy, with a pile of laundry next to her already full hamper. Eclectic pictures hanging on the walls, some artsy, some sentimental. She had a stack of books on her nightstand, along with spare chargers for all her devices, and an alarm clock that was still set for daylight savings time.

“Frank, you don’t have to—”

“Nothin’ else you can do today,” he said, gently shutting her door behind them. “Might as well rest.”

Karen snorted. “Rest. While the world falls apart.”

“Didn’t fall apart for us,” he said, glancing at her. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Frank…”

“Shh.” Opening her dresser, he grabbed a tee shirt that looked too big and worn out to be anything but a sleep shirt and handed it to her. “You change while I call Micro back and tell him you’re okay.”

Turning to give her privacy, he listened to her unzip and shed the layers of office wear while he talked David down from a pretty sufficient panic attack. The news stations didn’t have answers, the government sites didn’t have answers, and David was too jittery to break through S.H.E.I.L.D.’s firewall yet. They were all just gonna have to wait.

“Be with your family, David,” Frank told him. “That’s all you can do.”

Hanging up, Frank turned around to see Karen in her oversized tee shirt and nothing else, pulling back the covers on her bed.

There was no awkward questioning. No feigned desire to give space or keep polite distance. As soon as she was settled, Frank kicked his boots off and slid into bed next to her.

His only regret was not taking his belt off first, the stiff leather pinching his side. It was a small price to pay.

Stretching onto his back, Frank lifted his right arm, making room for Karen to lay her head on his chest.

“Frank?”

“Hm?”

“This happened, didn’t it. Today. This… catastrophe. It happened.”

He nodded, bumping his chin on her forehead gently. “Yeah. It did.”

Before long, Karen’s breathing was soft and shallow, arm heavy across his abdomen.

He stayed awake until the very last moment he could, begging a god he didn’t believe in to not let it be a dream.

*********

“ _Fuck_ , Frank…”

Dropping to one elbow, he was careful not to crush her as he changed the angle.

They’d both stirred awake at 4am, reaching for each other in the dark. With barely a word, clothes were shed, blankets kicked aside, a pillow fell to the floor as they rolled.

It was the realest thing he’d felt in years. The messy, complicated tangle of emotions that snared him like a well-made trap.

He wasn’t even considering an escape.

Hitching her leg up higher around his waist, Frank thrust slowly, drawing out every moan she made.

Karen dug her heel into his ass, silently begging him for more.

“Easy,” he said, grinning into her collar bone as he kissed her sweat-damp skin. “I got you.”

Her gaze turned sharp, predatory, just moments before she leveraged her weight and rolled him onto his back. Steadying herself, Karen planted her hands on his chest as she settled her hips over his.

“Sure about that?” She asked, rocking against him.

It sent sparks down Frank’s spine—Karen on top of him, looking down at him like he was worth something.

“I…” He faltered, gaze dropping to where they were joined.

Bending down, blonde hair sweeping over his chest, Karen kissed him and whispered, “I know.”

He didn’t doubt that for a second. Of all the people left on the planet, Karen knew him better than he knew himself.

Knew the words he wanted to say.

Knew that he couldn’t. Not yet anyway.

But that didn’t make them any less real. Or any less meaningful.

Reaching up, Frank cupped her face, running his thumb over her cheek as she gasped his name.

Alive. Whole. They were both some semblance of okay.

An imperfect miracle.

Lifting up to meet her, he watched as she tossed her head back, throat working around a ragged sound as she chased her release.

“Let me see you,” he whispered, hand tangling in her hair at the back of her neck. “C’mon, Kare. Let me…”

Her broken cry was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in recent memory.

Flushed and panting, she tensed as each wave crashed through her.

“Oh, Frank…” She whimpered, still riding him like her life depended on it.

Sitting up in a flash, he held her close, pressing their chests together. “You think you got another in you?”

The pink hue of her cheeks deepened, and he grinned.

“Yeah, yeah you do… C’mon,” he grunted, moving beneath her.

He was right.

And as she fell for a second time, he followed, burying his face in her neck, cursing with a groan.

Catching his breath, Frank clung to her. “I can’t lose you,” he mumbled in a daze.

Leaning back to look at him, Karen ran her finger tips over the crease in his brow and the ridge of his nose. “You won’t.”

_You won’t._

_You didn’t._

_We’re okay._

For the first time in a very long time, Frank let himself touch the edge of hope.

And it felt like Karen’s hand in his.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are not only welcome and encouraged, but adored <3


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